Wednesday, 31 August 2011

Tomorrow I move into the 3rd phase of my working life...
I will be moving on to new geography-related projects, and am grateful to those who have already offered me some work. Particular thanks to Steve Brace and Eleanor Coulber at the RGS-IBG, Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop and the Catlin Arctic Survey, Andrew Campbell and the team at Harper Collins, the SSAT Humanities team, Karl Donert, the Field Studies Council, Richard Allaway, Ruth Totterdell at the GA and Bob Lang & Paul Cornish, Dave Holmes and Philip Allan, Paul Baker, Katie and the TeachIt team, Jobina at TwigIt and a host of others, who have offered me work of some kind. Apologies if I have missed anyone out - don't worry you'll feature in future blog posts...There's also a few other exciting things which are in the pipeline and will be announced later in the year...

I shall also still be 'affiliated to the GA': leading CPD courses for the GA, notably the ESRI / GA GIS courses for beginners and advanced, and the NQT Conferences in November
Keep an eye out for some new GA publications in 2012.
I will also be spending more time on projects for the Geography Collective too: we have the re-launch of MISSION EXPLORE and the launch of DISCOVER:EXPLORE coming up as well as a host of other exciting things.
I shall also be completing some work in Poland, Austria, Scotland and various other locations, and I'm still keeping my eye out for a suitable teaching job in my home area.

Many thanks to all my GA colleagues for their tremendous support over the last three years.

Don't forget to JOIN THE GA.Also, please have your say in our KS3 consultation if you haven't already ! The results of this will matter !
I shall still be blogging here on Living Geography, so keep reading to find out what I get up to and elsewhere and tweeting on @GeoBlogs
Thanks for reading, and best wishes to everyone for the new academic year. It's going to be interesting !

TRIPTICO is a free download, which produces a desktop widget.
It has been developed by David Riley, as a way of offering tools that teachers can customise to their particular subject and year group.
I like a few of the tools in particular, and could see them being of particular use. One of them is a FIND TEN generator, which allows you to create a list of items, with 10 of them being the correct answers. I created one below - e-mail if you'd like a copy - you'll need the TRIPTICO tools in order to use the file...

This project has been an exciting one to be involved with. It offers a range of activities which can be carried out in your neighbourhood, and earn points for completing them. Would be good for exploring local areas, local wildlife and ideas of community. These will be used across the USA for their Geography Awareness Week later in the year.

You will need to have registered with TES Connect, which is free and takes a few moments.

Sunday, 7 August 2011

Earlier this year, I followed the progress of the latest expedition of the Catlin Arctic Survey.The team were exploring the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, and then drilling down through the ice to carry out a range of experiments aimed at exploring aspects of the ocean waters, which are at the heart of the Earth's oceanic circulation.

Digital Explorer's Jamie Buchanan Dunlop was involved in the expedition, which involved camping on the ice.

Now, I've been asked to get involved with the project by producing some teaching materials related to the work that the good folks were up to while camped out on the ice.

The explorer Pen Hadow was involved, as were a number of scientists and colleagues with a range of useful skills and experiences. They were also using some interesting equipment, including Niskin bottles and sensors called "peepers". While they were on the ice they also had a Twitter chat with my friend and colleague Kenny O' Donnell and his students.

Image: Catlin Arctic Survey

Watch out for some resources for KS3 and KS4 which will emerge on the website before too long...